American Reacts to 7 British Things we Don't have in America 

Your outrage at Blackcurrant being called mid was perfect. You spoke for a whole nation in that moment.

The toilet brush is for cleaning as and when needed. Not after every use of the toilet.

In Canada, we have hot water bottles, blackcurrant juice and egg cups, another essential that Americans don't have. After all, we are a civilised country! It's not just gun control and proper healthcare!

We used to drink hot ribena blackcurrant drink when we had colds and flu .

The blackcurrant thing blows my mind. Kids just grow up here drinking orange squash or blackcurrant. That's the rules. They're the default fruit drinks. Also the fact that you don't switch off your outlets before bed, that's another British routine!

Blackcurrant jam on toast, lovely.

We have grape juice it’s called wine !

you are not supposed to clear poo down the toilet with a toilet brush! It's to clean the toilet bowl....

Squash is also a sport.

Hot water bottles are mostly used to keep one warm in bed, not just for female cramps. In Victorian times they were actually ceramic. The American rain boots are not much use, the laces will get horribly wet. The point of Wellingtons is they don't have any place that the water can get in. Black current is the best fruit flavour. Grapes have no flavour.

Joel,mate, you are becoming more British with each reaction. One of these days,you are going to wake up one morning, looking and sounding like Al Murray,the pub landlord

Just to confuse things , in northern England Bog brush (toilet brush) Cordial (squash) Also the duke of wellington designed his own boots , Arthur Wellesley the iron duke , defeated napoleon at Waterloo “Wellingtons” aka Wellies

The toilet brush isn't used after each poo! It's to clean the insides of the toilet pan. A hot water bottle or 'hottie' is such a comfort to warm the bed or soothe those cramps (period pains in the UK) and other aches and pains. A higher tog duvet doesn't preheat the bed like a hottie.

Blackcurrant is the King of fruit flavours ! Ribena is delicious !

Hotwater bottles in the Netherlands too. Not just for cramps btw. And fresh black currants are so good and very healthy. In a bowl of yoghurt, with icecream or just as a snack. Lots of possibilities.

Blackcurrants are one of the healthiest fruits and I assume this is why some Americans wouldn’t like them🤣

Regarding the toilet it’s to do with water waste, less water in the toilet less flushed away. The voltage in the U.K. is double that in America

Ribena has been in existence for decades. It is very popular in the UK. Also blackcurrant jam is lovely. imho

We don't use toilet brushes for cleaning poops....it's more for cleaning the toilet to maintain hygiene. (I clean once a week, but some people clean it daily). Hot water bottles are great....I took one into hospital during labour!

Yeah you can keep grape flavour over there 🤣

I can't believe you don't have hot water bottles! I just learnt something.

I can’t live without my hot water bottle, since I was little I neeeed it….and I’m 58 now…it’s a comfort thing

'Soda' is an interesting word as for us Brits soda is fizzy water. I love lime and soda which is some lime squash with fizzy water

Ribena is lush! Also we don't need grape flavoured stuff because we have..... grapes! There is always a huge selection of different kinds of grapes in supermarkets! Often they get their own little section! Grape heaven!

Toilet brushes are aslo used to clean off limescale. More water = more lmescale.

I was born in England, during the second world war, my mother always used a hot water bottle for the whole family. There weren't any electric blankets in those days. Another item we used, was a chamber pot. I lived in the north of England, and I lived in a house that didn't have a bathroom or inside toilet.This, chamber pot, was affectionately known, to locals then, as a 'gazunder', known for going, under the bed. It was mostly used for a pee, if you were, caught short, during the night, instead of having to leave the house at night, to go to the outside, brick toilet.Young people today, have no idea how good they have it now.

You can't have a hot water bottle if you don't have a kettle ! See ! A kettle is for more than making a cup of Tea.

Ribena is great as a warm winter drink, full of vit C, good if you're feeling under the weather too.

Easy to fill a hot water bottle in the UK, by using a fast electric kettle plugged into a 240 volts outlet/socket. We can have hot Coffee/Tea or a nice warm bed in minutes.

If you think British toilets are slightly "snug", German ones are "gross". With them when you have a dump, the ordure lands on a shelf moulded into the back of the toilet. This allows the "dumpster" to inspect what he/she/it dumped. When you flush the toilet a "tsunami" of water sends everything round the U-bend.

Blackcurrant is fairly popular in Canada too. Tea, jelly, pastries, candies .. and yes, Ribena.

Pantomime is fun for children, with enough adult humour to keep the grown-ups entertained too, which is subtle enough that it goes over the heads of the youngsters. It's an early start to understanding the joy of live theatre, of which we excel here. There is always a Pantomime Dame, that's an older woman played for laughs by a man. The young male lead is played by a woman. It harks back to the early days of theatre cross dressing on stage, where all roles were played by men or boys, as women weren't allowed on the stage. It's bawdy & fun for all ages, with full audience participation.

Had a black currant bush in the garden that produced a lot of fruit. Pies, crumbles, and hot drinks to keep away colds and 'flu. Very lush!

Cold Ribena on a hot day is so good.

You can also use a hot water bottle to alternate with an ice pack for treating joint pain etc.

We have squash in Sweden too, but we call it saft. It's wild to me that it's not a thing everywhere

The advantage of wellies is that you can walk through mud/water that's 6-8 inches deep without any worry about ruining your boots or getting wet feet. When you get home you can just wash them with a hose or throw them in a basin of water. Super cheap. Very effective. No fuss

As an alternative to both grape and blackcurrant jam flavours, black cherry is really good.

Thanks my guy for defending our british honour 💪💪💪💪💪

Here in the UK, safer plugs are a necessity, as our household electricity is delivered at 240v, which is enough to kill a person. The higher voltage is also why electric kettles are so popular here. Electric kettles in the USA take so much longer to boil.

I'm 63 year old American and ever since I can remember we had a toilet brush by the toilet. I find this shocking about my fellow Americans if its true that most American households don't have a toilet brush.

I was exhausted watching that dude... so enthusiastic 😂

I also use my 'hot water bottle' in the summer - I fill it with water and freeze it. It's an excellent way to cool down and sleep on a hot day.

Welch's grape juice contains so much preservative it tastes like embalming fluid to a Brit. You can buy grape juice at Sainsbury's that you don't want to pour down the sink after one sip. My hot water bottle is the cat, you don't have to heat him up and he never goes cold.

He lives in the UK, but still has no idea.....

Love your "What??!!" to the guy's opinion of blackcurrant!! And the little look to camera at some of his bad puns :)

Plungers do not remove shit stuck to the toilet bowl. Hence the British use a toilet brush.

You have to GO to a Pantomime. Also, Pantomime is like a Drag Show: People in Fun Outfits, Cheeky humour and subversion.

New Zealanders have hot water bottles as well lol and they can be any colour more or less 😁

Blackcurrant pie with custard is the food of the gods. Mid? Mid? How dare he!

The opening of the 2nd act of the musical Billy Elliot is a Christmas pantomime, where everyone's dressed up as fun characters. They go on to take the p*ss out of Americans in the audience, who now have absolutely no idea what is going it. Brilliant 🤣

Blackcurrants are a great source of Vitamin C.

I was raised to call it cordial not squash and in my youth poor kids had cordial and the posh kids in my area had fizzy pop delivered by the pop van lolllllll I bet the posh kids now have dentures and we still have our own teeth lollllll.

By British things America doesn't have. He means things America doesn't have that the rest of the world does. They don't get out much, and even when they do still know nothing. Wolters world being a prime example.

I grow black currants - without all that sugar, they have a tartness to them that I like, but it's probably not everyone's cup of tea. I also grow jostaberries which are basically a cross between black currant and a gooseberry; a much bigger berry, and again pretty tart, but delicious. I never knew black currants used to be banned in the US to protect white pine trees.

I agree... even sundrenched Mediterranean red grapes plucked from the vine aren't as punchy as blackberries. A hot water bottle soothes, better than drugs... a good hot bath can't be taken to bed and it's what grandma soothed us with when in discomfort so we cling to it... yeah I have gel/rice filled they aren't the same.

We still use hot water bottles in Australia. Not just good for warming up the bed in winter but also as heat-pads if u have a sore knee or hip etc

The taste of blackcurrant is 'tart'. Sharp yet sweet. A common combination is apple & blackcurrant to sweeten it more.

I love your passion on the grape v blackcurrant 😂😊

Plaque getting closer! also a toilet brush is only used if marks are left quite rare if you eat a healthy diet! btw Blackcurrant Drink yum the actual fruit not so much! but in pies yum!

hot water bottles are also very common in Germany (Wärmflasche = warming bottle)

Cordial/squash is great. Should be a standard product everywhere. I have a video up of how they make it "Made In Britain - How Robinsons fruit squash is made"

Blackcurrant trumps grape every day of the week!!! So glad you set the record straight for this fella's crazy talk. 😂

5:25 ELECTRIC KETTLE DISCOURSE 🔥

Lets not forget that power outlets in UK homes are 250v, compared to the normal 120v of the USA, so it makes sense to have a bit more safety when it comes to the plugs and sockets.

A plunger and a toilet brush are two different things. Hot water bottles replaced old fashioned porcelain / brass bed warmers in the days before 15.0 tog duvets.

American rain boots don't look very practical, because if you accidentally stepped into a deepish puddle the water would seep through the part where the laces are, no matter how tight you tie them!!

Wellies are named after the Duke of Wellington who invented the waterproof boot. Up until rubber was discovered all boots were leather and not that good at keeping your feet dry while hunting. Wellington boots became very popular very quickly as the UK is very wet and the name was shortened to wellies.

Hey JP, if you want a pantomime to react to then is the best one it's called Jim Davidsons "Sinderella" but be warned it's a very adult version and hilariously funny. It's on RU-vid, so they can't block it because of the adult language

Big hello from Nicosia Cyprus 🇨🇾

The thing he didn’t mention on plugs is that the longer ground pin also opens shutters to allow the live pins to enter - they are shut otherwise so you can't stick stuff in them

Australian here. We have hot water bottles, electric kettles, proper toilets that don't wet your undercarriage, and we have Wellies bur call them "Gumboots". We have Ribena as well. We have mostly switched outlets and non-switched ones in some situations.

I like grap juice( UK citizen) i call it wine!

Blackcurrant is the best flavour in the world.

I’m wondering if he is getting blackcurrant mixed up with blackberries, because I know that blackberries ( or brambles ) are banned in the US because they are not native and they grow prolifically. I can’t see why blackcurrant would be banned. They grow much more slowly and are a bush rather than a vine like structure.

The mains voltage in the USA is 110 volts. In the UK it is 250 volts. Now, you might think that this makes the UK mains 2.27 times more dangerous. This is not the case. The danger increases by the square of the amount the voltage is increased, so that the UK mains are actually 5.17 times more dangerous than the US mains. As a result, there are far more precautions. The plugs are better insulated. The top part of the pins is earthed. The earth pin is longer so that it operates a mechanical flap inside the socket. In theory, it is not possible for a child to insert anything into a socket, because it is closed off by a flap until the earth pin is inserted, pushing the flap out of the way in readiness to receive the phase and neutral pins. By the time the flaps have been moved out of the way by the earth pin, the other two pins are already closing off the other holes. Then, the plug has a fuse built into it, rated by reference to the appliance which it is serving at 3, 5, 10 or 13 amps. A British socket can deliver up to 3.25 kilowatts of power. A US socket can only deliver about 1.5 kilowatts of power.

For me, no hot water bottles, no electric kettles, no egg cups, no squash, have been the weirdest, wtf but why not?

I've tried most of those 'grape flavour' products and they are utterly vile, so I totally agree with you. As for the plugs, they are definitely the best. Not only that, there are pretty strict regs about cut off or 'trip switches' in every property, so that in the very rare occurrence of an electric shock, it will trip off the circuit immediately so you bare highly unlikely to ever die from an electric shock.

Your comment about strong toilets is legendary! LMAO!!

Grape flavour tastes similar to the mouthwash used by dentists in the UK. My late wife was American, and she struggled with purple candy being blackcurrant rather than grape. Blackcurrants have a sweet taste, but can be tart, or even sour, much the same as other berries, although in candy they are usually sweet. I would describe it as being slightly velvety on the tongue. I do love me some blackcurrant squash. Sugar free options are incredibly common, especially since the sugar tax on drinks was introduced a few years ago.

Blackcurrant and orange flavoured things are so rooted in the lives of British people that grape wouldn't take on, and vice versa with blackcurrant flavour things.

Ribena with lemonade instead of water is lush in the summer. And with boiling water in the Winter too ! Cosy.

I am so onboard with your blackcurrent vs grapes lambast. With one exception - cotton candy grapes. Wowowowow - those things are amazing.

I loved your reaction to Blackcurrant being called mid and your subsequent Grape rant 😂😂

Blackcurrant is amazing flavour

We used to have toilets in the UK that half filled the bowl with water in the 70's . They were syphonic loos .Very powerfull flush , very quiet and more expensive . Often found them in a main bathroom where the toilet might have had some late night use as the flush noise wouldnt wake anyone.Easily pull a towel down them . Have repaired many over the years. They needed 9 litres of water to work and became obsolete as we reduced our flush water volume over the decades (currently around 4litres for the latest loos)

As a teen growing up in Scotland my whole life, blackcurrant and other dilouted juices (squash) were the way to go. Some Orange Robinson or Vimto goes so hard in summer, my sister actually grew up ONLY drinking dilouted juice, no water, no milk, no fresh juice, and DEFINITELY not any fizzy. She hated the whole lot but if you gave her some blackcurrant the cup would be empty in seconds!

A quick one on pantomime, the reason why kids and adults like them is because there are parts that go over kids heads, the use of double meanings in actions and words. Which make it watchable by both. Obviously some groups are far better than others in the way they produce and put on the play. But if you want a Purley adult one. Jim davidsons boobs in the woods , its on you tube

Ex Brit living in Oz, I have both a hot water bottle and an electric under blanket both are great for sore backs and muscles. Also so cosy getting into bed on cold winters nights. Not in summer of coarse. (edit) Power outlets also all have individual switches here.

The UK plug is definitely the safest in the world. The plug has and individual fuse, the pins are shielded,the internal wiring is made in such a way that there is a cable grip, the cables, if wrenched out, come out live cable first, the earth pin is longer and, therefore first in and last out. The socket not only has a switch it is a double pole switch - that's both live and neutral are disconnected. The sockets have shutters to stop people pushing things into the live parts, the shutters is operated by the earth pin entering the socket. Admittedly, you can trick the shutters open but that requires a conscious effort to override a safety mechanism - you can make things foolproof not idiot proof

Blackcurrant is a bit of an oddity. You’d be hard pressed to find them on sale in a supermarket. During the two world wars the UK had difficulty in obtaining regular fruits as a source of vitamin C. Blackcurrants are high in vitamin C and grow easily in our temperate climate so they were a valued source. Ribena was promoted as an ideal way to give children vitamin C. I drank it every day as a child before I moved on to tea. In those days it was only available in the concentrated Squash form in 75cl bottles, but in the early 1980s they introduced it in drink form. Apparently about 95% of the British blackcurrant harvest still goes into making Ribena.

Grapes are full of sugars which is why Americans prefer them to blackcurrant. As you remove sugar from your diet you will feel better after the withdrawal.

7:50 It’s summer and I love squash! Although just go with lemon if you don’t want anything sweet.

With bottles of Ribena, if it’s a big bottle, like Evan had then it would be Concentrate. Whereas if you drunk a single drink sized bottle, the type you might get in a Tesco Meal Deal, then it is ready mixed with water.

Vimto is supreme when it comes to cordials!

My favourite Panto is easily Aladdin where the audience get to boo the villain every single time he appears. It's a real laugh

Apparently most of the blackcurrants grown in the UK go into making Ribena. We don't often see the fruit in the shops.

Those rain boots look identical to mucking out boots 😂. Worn when mucking out orses 🐴🐎🦄 6:44 I'm with you on grape vs blackcurrant too 12:30 . Keep it your side of the pond lol 🤣👍🏻

British homes run on 240 volts, and homes in the USA run on 120 volts. That's the reason British plugs and sockets (outlets) need to be so much safer.

you dont use a brush ever time...just if you make a mess. you dont boil water in a kettle for a hot water bottle. Hot water from the tap is fine. I dont have any wellies. Squash is also racketball. Blackcurrant isnt mid, its way better than grape and of course grape wasnt replaced by blackcurrant because unlike america we didnt have to find a blackcurrant alternative. Well done Evan you got one thing right lol.